Will do. My wife also begins her starts in early Feb.
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Oh not true. My wife is Caribbean and while she doesn’t eat pepper. The Scotch bonnet/Habanero family do give Caribbean dishes I have tried a unique flavor that is just not the same if you where to try to substitute other peppers. A common way they are used is to put whole peppers in the stew. The whole stew gets flavorful but not overly hot unless a pepper burst or you burst it in your bowl.
Jalenenos/seranos and chese no other pepper will give you that flavor. Dry Jalepenos eg Chipotle peppers have a unique zing.
Thai Chiles can maybe sometimes be substitute with Cayennes but thats like saying siracha and tobacco Sause taste the same.
Yellow Aji, Capsicum baccatum have a strong citrus flavor and are indispensable in Peruvian and south American cooking.
Koreans culvated a chile they use is to make there Gochugaru and Gochjang paste.
I have tried substituting one pepper for another many times with little success.
But I will admit. when it comes to sweet peppers in food. I will use any sweet pepper interchangeably unless a specific texture or stuffing it is involved.
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I am looking forward to a variety called Rehza Macedonian, given to me by a very fine member here. Wanted it do grow for several years now, so this the year. Have several Aji peppers already, anywhere from sweet to exstremely hot.
No tags anymore.
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@lordkiwi 100% - the right pepper can make or break a dish.
I don’t think I’ve grown an aji, I really should.
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To a wine lover who pays close attention there is a universe of variety, but others just love a good bottle of Bud. In the end, we live in an age where the variety of taste experiences available to most in this country far exceeds at least my ability to fully appreciate every realm of it, even if I spent my whole life exploring the possibilities.
Meanwhile, most Americans don’t even know what a tree ripened peach can taste like. However, I love your descriptions of the use of various peppers, although it won’t influence my opinion of habaneros.
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I dont really disagree about habaneros I buy sauses that use habaneros but I would really go for Stoch bonnet over habaneros less heat more access to flavor.
You are teaching me things about peppers I didn’t know. I have long thought Scotch bonnets and habaneros were the same pepper. A search I just made suggests that they can be equally hot but that SB’s are fruity. Citric acid, I’m guessing.
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Habaneros and Scotch bonnets are both very fruity and “tropical”, just in different ways. The flavor is almost as intense as the heat, so one habanero just halved and simmered with a sauce or soup can bring balanced flavor and heat to the dish. In hot sauces, they tend to be cut with other sweet/fruity flavors like carrots or mango. Trinidad mustard sauce uses sweet onion, mango, mustard, and habaneros for a magical combination.
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It’s such a great book. I don’t keep many cookbooks around, but this has a permanent spot on my shelf. It’s one that you really learn something from. It will definitely up your Mexican food game, and may even give you some ideas about how to cook other dishes.
On the subject of too much heat, I personally find that added heat makes you taste more flavors, with one big caveat. This only works up to whatever your heat tolerance is, which is different for everyone. Above that tolerance, all you get is pain, as you’ve noted. It is possible to increase your threshold. I used to HATE even the smallest amount of spicy, but I decided at one point that it was important that I be able to appreciate spicy food. I kept trying and trying and eventually got to where I am now, where I can sample some reasonably hot chiles (like the aji amarillo, cayennes, pequins) right off the plant and actually enjoy the experience. Most of what I cook actually has little to no heat to it, but it’s nice to be able to enjoy the full range of spicy. All that being said, I do think that the superhots (ghosts, reapers, scorpions, etc) are too much. It’s about showing off at that point, not good cooking. But who knows? Maybe I’ll change my mind about that, too!
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I grow a lot of peppers each year. My friends and family always want my pickled banana peppers. As I don’t heat treat them at all and they are flavorful and super crunchy. One must keep refrigerated, and they only stay crunchy for about 2 months, then they are like all other yellow peppers. My wife loves Hatch green chilies so I grow ton’s of them. Surprisingly they ripen early and are super productive. I now only grow Big Jim Legacy, I prefer it over the U. of New Mexico’s Heritage Big Jim. The plants produce early and produce all season. I love southwestern dishes so I can never grow enough of them. Probably Green Chili stew is one of our favorites, but use them in enchiladas, and various Mexican dishes I make on a weekly basis. Such a unique flavor to green chilis. They come in mild to hot forms. Big Jim had medium heat, a little less than a jalapeno. Others are much hotter. It is some work roasting and skinning the peppers for later use, is a hassle, and I save a few hundred peppers each year, so it is a lot of work
I use a lot of different peppers but have been narrowing down the number. I have made paprika, but prefer a few specialty brands over what I can do. Just a more even product than I can make. I only powder jalapenos these days.
Bell peppers are hard to grow but the thin skin and thick flesh are appealing. I have been able to get Spanish Mammoth and Yellow Monster to work, but I always have a lot of green peppers at the end of the season. I sometimes bring them in, grown in pots, and ripen them under lights. It’s a hassle though.
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If you haven’t yet check out his YouTube channel. I have a few cooking channels I watch and his is one. The habanero salsa is awesome. I didn’t even know he had a cookbook. I’ll check that out.
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I’m trying some trick or treat no heat habaneros this year. I love the habanero flavor but I can’t take the heat.
Got some Aji Crystal peppers for a 30,000 level heat with some hopefully good flavor.
Then some lesya peppers for the sweet end of things.
Trying 14 new pepper varieties this year total, hoping to find something I like. Done the basic bell pepper, cubanelle, and banana pepper in the last and always ended up with low yields on the bells and bitter poor tasting cubanelles.
Always try a few new varieties every year to keep your interest. Here are a few that I’ve enjoyed.
http://www.wildgardenseed.com/
Try Stocky Red Roaster, Stocky Golden Roaster, and maybe one of the Stoplight Orange. I have to confess a personal interest with the stoplight peppers as I made the cross in 2012 and sent seed to Frank Morton for Orange Bell X Little Bells (red). He selected several variants which have been exceptional. I particularly like that he stabilized peppers that make an abundant crop in short season areas, yet still perform very well in the deep South. These are all sweet peppers, but arguably among the best sweet peppers I’ve ever grown.
https://www.sandhillpreservation.com/pepper
La Rouge Royale, Orange Bell, and Purple Beauty are very good sweet bell types that perform very well in the midwest through the South East. Cubanelle, Purple Marconi, and Sirenevyi are exceptional in their categories. Alma Paprika is an exceptional paprika type. Tobago Seasoning is a very good seasoning pepper when you want just a bit of heat along with some piquant flavor. Chapeau de Frade (capsicum baccaturm) is the most flavorful pepper I’ve grown, but a caution that it is also pretty hot. Fish is a unique pepper, look up the white sauce recipe to use it with. I could recommend many more, but most of them are already being discussed. If you look through Glenn’s list, you will see that he sells many of the peppers Frank Morton developed. You can order from Sandhill and get almost all that I have listed.
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Try using the habaneros whole- like not cut open and be careful not to break them open at all. It gives a touch of the flavor with very little of the heat. Learned this from my Guyanese in-laws. They always throw a whole, uncut habanero into a pot of rice.
I’m a pepper freak myself. I grow mostly serrano for smoking and drying, habaneros for hot sauce, and shishito for roasting whole on the grill. Last year I also grew some giant jalepenos just for stuffing- which was great. Thinking I might try some of the Hatch peppers this summer.
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Arroz Con Pollo is another one that has habanero flavor but no heat. I grew it for the first time last year and really liked it.
I agree this is a great topic.
I do grow “my mother in law’s scotch bonnets” for heat and aroma, but agree it’s not only about hot peppers.
Serranos are easy to buy, and unlike jalapenos around here a reliable source of heat.
I grow Fresnos for moderate heat with flavor and color, and I pickle them because I can’t always find them.
I grow hotter varieties of poblano, like “Tiburon” and “Baron” and let them ripen for making jelly. I also grow mild chinenses like aji dulce and rocotillo.
I usually grow some cubanelles like Nassau and “Italian Frying peppers” like Escamillo (yellow/orange) and Corno Di Torro ( the red ones) for cooking.
Lately I ve been growing the Peruvian Aji Amarillo, which have a unique flavor and a mild (to me) heat.
This year I also got some Aji Charapita and Sugar Rush peach pepper seeds but I haven’t tried them yet.
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I just ordered seeds for a warmer version of a Big Jim called Doublecross. A hybrid from Sandia. Anxious to see how it does.
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I grew double cross a few years ago and have some seeds left and will grow them this year again. They were pretty hot for a hatch type but significantly smaller than a Big Jim. You’ll enjoy them.
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Thanks for the info, Zendog. I’m doing some Big Jim Heritage too.
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